Lessons from the New Jersey Comparative Risk Project

Andrews, Clinton J.

doi:10.1007/1-4020-2243-3_9

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Through a series of case studies, we intend to develop our presentation of incertitude in these analyses and consider how broader stakeholder input might be better incorporated into these analyses. Other workers ( 28,29 ) are making valuable contributions in this regard. Summarizing the New Jersey Comparative Risk Project, an analytic‐deliberative project evaluating and attempting to prioritize 88 environmental risk problems, Andrews et al ( 28 ) describes the results of applying a range of scoring systems within the context of a resource limited risk ranking exercise.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other workers ( 28,29 ) are making valuable contributions in this regard. Summarizing the New Jersey Comparative Risk Project, an analytic‐deliberative project evaluating and attempting to prioritize 88 environmental risk problems, Andrews et al ( 28 ) describes the results of applying a range of scoring systems within the context of a resource limited risk ranking exercise. Their findings, specifically with respect to the tracking and presentation of types of uncertainty within these exercises, offer further practical developments and advances for the approach described in our work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Pollard

Kemp²,

Crawford³

et al. 2004

Risk Analysis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Environmental policymakers and regulators are often in the position of having to prioritize their actions across a diverse range of environmental pressures to secure environmental protection and improvements. Information on environmental issues to inform this type of strategic analysis can be disparate; it may be too voluminous or even absent. Data on a range of issues are rarely presented in a common format that allows easy analysis and comparison. Nevertheless, judgments are required on the significance of various environmental pressures and on the inherent uncertainties to inform strategic assessments such as "state of the environment" reports. How can decisionmakers go about this type of strategic and comparative risk analysis? In an attempt to provide practical tools for the analysis of environmental risks at a strategic level, the Environment Agency of England and Wales has conducted a program of developmental research on strategic risk assessment since 1996. The tools developed under this program use the concept of "environmental harm" as a common metric, viewed from technical, social, and economic perspectives, to analyze impacts from a range of environmental pressures. Critical to an informed debate on the relative importance of these perspectives is an understanding and analysis of the various characteristics of harm (spatial and temporal extent, reversibility, latency, etc.) and of the social response to actual or potential environmental harm from a range of hazards. Recent developments in our approach, described herein, allow a presentation of the analysis in a structured fashion so as to better inform risk-management decisions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Pollard

Kemp²,

Crawford³

et al. 2004

Risk Analysis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Both the stakeholders on the project Steering Committee and the experts who comprised its Technical Work Groups identified stochastic uncertainty, structural uncertainty, and ignorance as highly important. ( 16 ) Potentially, stochastic uncertainty could lead to spurious precision, ambiguity could lead to controversy over interpretations of expert findings, classical uncertainty could make contingency planning more difficult, and ignorance could lead to unwanted surprises.…”

Section: Uncertainty In Risk Comparison Exercisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accommodating Uncertainty in Comparative Risk

Andrews¹,

Hassenzahl²,

Johnson³

2004

Risk Analysis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Comparative risk projects can provide broad policy guidance but they rarely have adequate scientific foundations to support precise risk rankings. Many extant projects report rankings anyway, with limited attention to uncertainty. Stochastic uncertainty, structural uncertainty, and ignorance are types of incertitude that afflict risk comparisons. The recently completed New Jersey Comparative Risk Project was innovative in trying to acknowledge and accommodate some historically ignored uncertainties in a substantive manner. This article examines the methods used and lessons learned from the New Jersey project. Monte Carlo techniques were used to characterize stochastic uncertainty, and sensitivity analysis helped to manage structural uncertainty. A deliberative process and a sorting technique helped manage ignorance. Key findings are that stochastic rankings can be calculated but they reveal such an alarming degree of imprecision that the rankings are no longer useful, whereas sorting techniques are helpful in spite of uncertainty. A deliberative process is helpful to counter analytical overreaching.

show abstract

“…A common theme is the tension between the need to communicate risk (adopted by pragmatists) and a desire to maintain intellectual consistency (theorists). Although the USEPA’s (1987) work was criticized, as most SRA tools have been, completing the exercise significantly improved cross-departmental communication and fostered a societal discussion about environmental challenges . Other approaches − have shown that risk-ranking exercises are necessarily imperfect due to a host of design and integration issues (logarithmic versus linear expressions of probability and consequence; multidimensionality of environmental harm; incommensurability of comparing harm), the uncertainties of strategic decision-making (time scale, poor granularity at national level), and the staff time needed to fully characterize strategic risks which is often prohibitively long.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Character of Environmental Harms: Overcoming Implementation Challenges with Policy Makers and Regulators

Prpich

Evans

Irving

et al. 2011

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Policy makers and regulators are charged with the daunting task of comparing incommensurate environmental risks to inform strategic decisions on interventions. Here we present a policy-level framework intended to support strategic decision processes concerning environmental risks within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The framework provides the structure by which risk-based evidence may be collated and by assessing the value of harm expressed by different environmental policy areas against a consistent objective (e.g., sustainable development), we begin to form a basis for relative comparison. This research integrates the prior art, examples of best practice, and intimate end-user input to build a qualitative assessment informed by expert judgment. Supported by contextual narratives, the framework has proven successful in securing organizational support and stimulating debate about proportionate mitigation activity, resource allocation, and shifts in current risk thinking.

show abstract

Lessons from the New Jersey Comparative Risk Project

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Accommodating Uncertainty in Comparative Risk

Character of Environmental Harms: Overcoming Implementation Challenges with Policy Makers and Regulators

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About